1940s • 1948
Bertrand Russell, "Authority and the Individual" • 1949
Robert Birley, "Britain in Europe"
1950s • 1950
John Zachary Young, "Doubt and Certainty in Science" • 1951
Lord Radcliffe, "Power and the State" • 1952
Arnold J. Toynbee, "The World and the West" • 1953
J. Robert Oppenheimer, "Science and the Common Understanding" • 1954
Oliver Franks, "Britain and the Tide of World Affairs" • 1955
Nikolaus Pevsner, "The Englishness of English Art" • 1956
Edward Victor Appleton, "Science and the Nation" • 1957
George F. Kennan, "Russia, the Atom and the West" • 1958
Bernard Lovell, "The Individual and the Universe" • 1959
Peter Medawar, "The Future of Man"
1960s • 1960
Edgar Wind, "Art and Anarchy" • 1961
Margery Perham, "The Colonial Reckoning" • 1962
George Carstairs, "This Island Now" • 1963
Albert Sloman, "A University in the Making" • 1964
Leon Bagrit, "The Age of Automation" • 1965
Robert Gardiner, "World of Peoples" • 1966
John K. Galbraith, "The New Industrial State" • 1967
Edmund Leach, "A Runaway World" • 1968
Lester B. Pearson, "In the Family of Man" • 1969
Frank Fraser Darling, "Wilderness and Plenty"
1970s • 1970
Donald Schön, "Change and Industrial Society" • 1971
Richard Hoggart, "Only Connect" • 1972
Andrew Shonfield, "Europe: Journey to an Unknown Destination" • 1973
Alastair Buchan, "Change Without War" • 1974
Ralf Dahrendorf, "The New Liberty" • 1975
Daniel J. Boorstin, "America and the World Experience" • 1976
Colin Blakemore, "Mechanics of the Mind" • 1977
A. H. Halsey, "Change in British Society" • 1978
Edward Norman, "Christianity and the World" • 1979
Ali Mazrui, "The African Condition"
1980s • 1980
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, "Unmasking Medicine" • 1981
Laurence Martin, "The Two Edged Sword" • 1982
Denis Donoghue, "The Arts Without Mystery" • 1983
Douglas Wass, "Government and the Governed" • 1984
John Searle, "Minds, Brains and Science" • 1985
David Henderson, "Innocence and Design" • 1986
Lord McCluskey, "Law, Justice and Democracy" • 1987
Alexander Goehr, "The Survival of the Symphony" • 1988
Geoffrey Hosking, "The Rediscovery of Politics" • 1989
Jacques Darras, "Beyond the Tunnel of History"
1990s • 1990
Jonathan Sacks, "The Persistence of Faith" • 1991
Steve Jones, "The Language of Genes" • There was no lecture in 1992 because "the BBC simply couldn't find anyone to do them" • 1993
Edward Said, "Representation of the Intellectual" • 1994
Marina Warner, "Managing Monsters" • 1995
Richard Rogers, "Sustainable City" • 1996
Jean Aitchison, "The Language Web" • 1997
Patricia J. Williams, "The Genealogy of Race" • 1998
John Keegan, "War in Our World" • 1999
Anthony Giddens, "The Runaway World"
2000s • 2000
Chris Patten,
Sir John Browne,
Thomas Lovejoy,
Gro Harlem Brundtland,
Vandana Shiva,
Charles, Prince of Wales, "Respect for the Earth" • 2001
Tom Kirkwood, "The End of Age" • 2002
Onora O'Neill, "A Question of Trust?" • 2003
V. S. Ramachandran, "The Emerging Mind" • 2004
Wole Soyinka, "Climate of Fear" • 2005
Lord Broers, "The Triumph of Technology" • 2006
Daniel Barenboim, "In the Beginning was Sound" • 2007
Jeffrey Sachs, "Bursting at the Seams" • 2008
Professor Jonathan Spence, "Chinese Vistas" • 2009
Michael Sandel, "A New Citizenship"
2010s • 2010
Martin Rees, "Scientific Horizons" • 2011
Aung San Suu Kyi and
Baroness Manningham-Buller, "Securing Freedom" • 2012
Niall Ferguson, "The Rule of Law and Its Enemies" • 2013
Grayson Perry, "Playing to the Gallery" • 2014
Atul Gawande, "The Future of Medicine" • 2016 (March)
Stephen Hawking, "Do Black Holes Have No Hair?" • 2016 (October)
Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Mistaken Identities" • 2017
Hilary Mantel, "Resurrection: The Art and Craft" • 2018
Margaret MacMillan, "The Mark of Cain" • 2019
Jonathan Sumption, "Law and the Decline of Politics"
2020s • 2020
Mark Carney, "How We Get What We Value—from Moral to Market Sentiments" • 2021
Stuart J. Russell, "Living with Artificial Intelligence" • 2022
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Freedom of Speech";
Rowan Williams, "Freedom of Worship";
Darren McGarvey, "Freedom from Want";
Fiona Hill, "Freedom from Fear" (theme: "The Four Freedoms") • 2023
Ben Ansell, "Our Democratic Future" • 2024
Gwen Adshead, "Four Questions About Violence" • 2025
Rutger Bregman, "Moral Revolution" == Censorship ==